As many of you know, my family suffered the loss of my Father to cancer shortly before Thanksgiving. Although we knew that he was sick, this still caught us by surprise as he was relatively healthy and doing well just a few weeks before.

Now I do not bring this up here, in the synagogue bulletin for expressions of sympathy. My family has received tremendous support both from the TBS community and from the Mishkan Israel community, of which my parents are a part. I do bring this up as a prime example of why we feel that it is so important to be synagogue members, regardless of what synagogue that may be. The community that one gains upon joining and participating in synagogue life is immeasurable. Members of the Hamden synagogues offered endless support during the funeral and shiva that continued beyond to the end of shloshim, where we are now. The sympathy cards, donations to the shul and meals brought to our family have been wonderful. There is no other activity in our lives that comes even close to providing this same amount of support and I will guess that this would be true for many of us.

Without becoming too preachy, on behalf of my family we want to thank you for each card, donation, meal and especially dessert that was brought or sent to us over the past several weeks. Your care and support has been wonderful.